Spinoza ,Hegel & Substance

Spinoza ,Hegel & Substance

Dr.Abdul Lathief.

http://lathief1.tripod.com

Hegel is one of my favorites and I consider him as one of the great masters of the ages.But what confuses and surprises me is his criticism of Spinoza and his knowledge of Spinoza’s philosophy.

About Spinoza in the Logic of Encyclopedia Hegel clearly says that Spinoza’s concept of absolute as substance is only his sub category of Essence.it has not even developed into Causality nor Reciprocity.it is then far from notion(substance self realised).

(A.being B.Essence:a-possibility b-contingency c-real possibility-Necessity:-i-relationship of substantiality ii-relationship of causality iii-reciprocity. C: Notion.

“Corresponding to the Notion of the absolute and to the relation of reflection to it, as expounded here, is the notion of substance in Spinozism. Spinozism is a defective philosophy because in it reflection and its manifold determining is an external thinking. The substance of this system is one substance, one indivisible totality; there is no determinateness that is not contained and dissolved in this absolute; and it is sufficiently important that in this necessary notion, everything which to natural picture thinking or to the understanding with its fixed distinctions, appears and is vaguely present as something self-subsistent, is completely reduced to a mere positedness. Determinateness is negation-is the absolute principle of Spinoza's philosophy; this true and simple insight establishes the absolute unity of substance. But Spinoza stops short at negation as determinateness or quality; he does not advance to a cognition of negation as absolute, that is, self-negating, negation; thus his substance does not itself contain the absolute form, and cognition of it is not an immanent cognition. True, substance is the absolute unity of thought and being or extension; therefore it contains thought itself, but only in its unity with extension, that is, not as separating itself from extension, hence in general not as a determinative and formative activity, nor as a movement which returns into and begins from itself. Two consequences follow from this: one is that substance lacks the principle of personality — a defect which has been the main cause of hostility to Spinoza's system; the other is that cognition is external reflection which does not comprehend and derive from substance that which appears as finite, the determinateness of the attribute and the mode, and generally itself as well, but is active as an external understanding, taking up the determinations as given and tracing them back to the absolute but not taking its beginnings from the latter”.(Science of Logic-1179)

"The absolute Substance of Spinoza certainly falls short of absolute spirit, and it is a right and proper requirement that God should be defined as absolute spirit"(logic-$50)

"In the history of philosophy we meet with Substance as the principle of Spinoza ’s system. On the import and value of this much-praised and no-less decried philosophy there has been great misunderstanding and a deal of talking since the days of Spinoza. The atheism, and as a further charge, the pantheism of the system has formed the commonest ground of accusation. These cries arise because of Spinoza’s conception of God as substance, and substance only. What we are to think of this charge follows, in the first instance, from the place which substance takes in the system of the logical idea. Though an essential stage in the evolution of the idea, substance is not the same with absolute idea, but the idea under the still limited form of necessity.
It is true that God is necessity, or, as we may also put it, that he is the absolute Thing: he is however no less the absolute Person. That he is the absolute Person however is a point which the philosophy of Spinoza never reached: and on that side it falls short of the true notion of God which forms the content of religious consciousness in Christianity. Spinoza was by descent a Jew; and it is upon the whole the Oriental way of seeing things, according to which the nature of the finite world seems frail and transient, that has found its intellectual expression in his system".(logic-151n)

"The Notion is the principle of freedom, the power of substance self-realised"(logic$160).

"I refrain from accumulating further examples of the religious and poetic conceptions which it is customary to call pantheistic. Of the philosophies to which that name is given, the Eleatic, or Spinozist, it has been remarked earlier (§ 50, note) that so far are they from identifying God with the world and making him finite, that in these systems this 'everything' has no truth, and that we should rather call them monotheistic, or, in relation to the popular idea of the world, acosmical. They are most accurately called systems which apprehend the Absolute only as substance. Of the oriental, especially the Mohammedan, modes of envisaging God, we may rather say that they represent the Absolute as the utterly universal genus which dwells in the species or existences, but dwells so potently that these existences have no actual reality. The fault of all these modes of thought and systems is that they stop short of defining substance as subject and as mind".(encyclopedia -philosophy of mind-$573)

"As regards the philosophy of Spinoza, it is very simple, and on the whole easy to comprehend; the difficulty which it presents is due partly to the limitations of the method in which Spinoza presents his thoughts, and partly to his narrow range of ideas, which causes him in an unsatisfactory way to pass over important points of view and cardinal questions"(history of philosophy-Spinoza)

But Spinoz's substance is not Hegel’s subcategory of Essence.In the highest plane Spinoza’s substance is Unknowable absolute with infinite eternal essential attributes out of which only two essential eternal attributes(thought and extension) are known to we humans.as we cannot know any attributes which are beyond knowledge(thought) or extension this is unknowable.so this plane is similar to Hegel's Notion.. when Spinoza says the substance has infinite essential attributes out of which only two main attributes, thought(corresponds to Hegel's major category notion) and extension(corresponds to Hegel's major category being)is knowable to we human it is apparent that this substance is the absolute idea of Hegel with all its categories plus including an element of unknowability.

Now the substance which we aware of due to the attributes of knowledge and extension is the substance whose essense,existence,reason,will and power are one and the same.the substance has all these attributes at this plane.so substance at this plane is the same as Hegel's Notion or rather its completed stage as Absolute idea with cognition,will and power as its categories.

Below are the some of the quotes taken from Ethics.

. By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception(Part I concerning God-Definition iii)

By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite--that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality(Part-1-defi-vi)

Substance cannot be produced by anything external , it must, therefore, be its own cause--that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence belongs to its nature(part-1-proposition-vii)

God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.(part-1-propo-xi)

Hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God(part-1-prop-xv)

Further (to say a word here concerning the intellect and the will which we attribute to God), if intellect and will appertain to the eternal essence of God, we must take these words in some significations quite different from those they usually bear. For intellect and will, which should constitute the essence of God, would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human intellect and will, in fact, would have nothing in common with them but the name; there would be about as much correspondence between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks. This I will prove as follows: If intellect belongs to the divine nature, it cannot be in nature, as ours is generally thought to be, posterior to, or simultaneous with the things understood, inasmuch as God is prior to all things by reason of his casuality On the contrary, the truth and formal essence of things is as it is, because it exists by representation as such in the intellect of God; Wherefore the intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute God's essence, is, in reality, the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence. This seems to have been recognized by those who have asserted, that God's intellect, God's will, and God's power, are one and the same. As, therefore, God's intellect is the sole cause of things, namely, both of their essence and existence, it must necessarily differ from them in respect to its essence, and in respect to its existence-(part-1-prop vii)

The existence of God and his essence are one and the same.(part-1-prop xx)

Further, all the philosophers whom I have read admit that God's intellect is entirely actual, and not at all potential; as they also admit that God's intellect, and God's will, and God's essence are identical, it follows that, if God had had a different actual intellect and a different will, his essence would also have been different; and thus, as I concluded at first, if things had been brought into being by God in a different way from that which has obtained, God's intellect and--will, that is (as is admitted) his essence would perforce have been different, which is absurd.-part1-xxxiii

God's power is identical with his essence.(part-1-xxxiv)

Thought is an attribute of God, or God is a thinking thing.(part-2-prop i)

Extension is an attribute of God, or God is an extended thing.(part-2-prop-ii)

Before going any further, I wish to recall to mind what has been pointed out above-namely, that whatsoever can be perceived by the infinite intellect as constituting the essence of substance, belongs altogether only to one substance: consequently, substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one attribute, now through the other. So, also, a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, though expressed in two ways. This truth seems to have been dimly recognized by those Jews who maintained that God, God's intellect, and the things understood by God are identical.(part-2-prop-vii)

The End

Appendix

1-MR.STEPHEN COWLEY’S POST(YAHOOGROUP-HEGEL-DIALOGNET)

Dear Dr Lathief,

Some brief replies:

Stephen Cowley

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 3:24 PM
Subject: [hegel-dialognet] Hegel ,Judaism &Islam

L: "Dear Members,
Hegel ,Judaism &Islam
Dr Abdul Lathief
Hegel is one of my favorites and I consider him as one of the great masters
of the ages.But what confuses and surprises me is his criticism and
knowledge of other philosophers(especially Spinoza 's Substance) and the
major religions like Hinduism,Judaism,Islam and even Christianity except
perhaps Protestant Christianity."

Reply: I think Hegel's knowledge of Spinoza was good. You may know that he
helped bring out an edition of Spinoza in Jenabetween 1801-07, which demonstrates close knowledge of the text. Certainly though, his knowledge
of other philosophers - e.g. Scholastic philosophy, was second hand, despite
his lecturing on them in his History of Philosophy lectures.

His knowledge of other religions was certainly limited. Generally though, I
would expect a philosopher to have a critical attitude to religion. I see
nothing out of order in that in principle.

L: "When Hegel says Jewish , Islamic,and Spinoza's God is Essence or its Sub
category Substance first we have to look into Hegel's notion of Essence and
Substance."

Reply: I think it might be better to take his overall aim in relation to
Spinoza, namely, "to conceive the absolute as subject as well as substance"
(Phenomenology, Preface). I am also not quite comfortable about your
conflating Hegel's views of three such different (and in the case of the
religions, internally diverse) trends of thought in this way.

L: "Hegel himself says in Science of Logic that the"content of Logic is the
exposition of God as he is in himself before the creation of nature and a
finite mind" . In Encyclopedia in the development of the Absolute as
Absolute Idea Essence is only at the second category and Substance is only
its subcategory.(I.Being II.Essence:a-Possibility b-Contingency c-Real
possibility(Necessity):-1-relationship of Substantiality 2-relationship of
Causality 3-Reciprocity. III: Notion.1-Subjective Notion 2-Object
3-Idea-a-Life b-Cognition(i-knowledge(thinking) ii-will) c-Absolute Idea.
From the above it is clear that according to Hegel Jewish,Islamic and
Spinoza,sGod is not even developed in to the stage of Causality or
Reciprocity, so of course far from the Category Notion."
"The Notion is the principle of freedom, the power of substance
self-realised"(logic$160).
So according to Hegel, Jewish ,Islamic and Spinoza's God is neither a Living
(life) God,nor a Knowing or Willing God or in short a not Self realised God
but only a Substance so never contain the Notion of Absolute Idea.

Reply: He is attributing substantiality as the dominant thought, at least
in the case of Spinoza, but that is not say there may not be hints or
suggestions of higher thoughts. Also, to the extent that Hegel is actually
saying this (which I doubt), he is obviously guilty of stereotyping. If he
had had aa closer knowledge of the texts involved, I am sure he would have
acknowedged this.

L: "I will write about Hegel's criticism of Spinoza and his Substance
&Hinduism in a later article.I think any one with basic ideas of Jewish
religious texts like written Torah(old testament),Oral Torah or Talmud will
be able to see the apparent contradiction between the criticism of Hegel
and the concept of God in these Holy texts."

Reply: These are such different subjects that I would make separate
articles of them. I suspect that in speaking of Judaism, Hegel is thinking
mainly, from a Lutheran perspective, of the books of the Old Testament. I
certainly agree with you if you are suggesting that he does not do justice
to these. In the Phenomenology for example, he skips strainght from Greek
Religion to Christianity, neglecting the Jewish context of Jesus' thought.

L: "I will concentrate only on the Islamic concept of God.
According to Islam and Holy Quran and the Sufi doctrine of Emanation based
on Islamic teachings God has both Eternal and Temporal aspect.
Eternal aspect has both Transendental and Immanent elements which other
similar mystical systems like Kabbala ,Pythogrism,Neoplatonism, Buddism etc
describe as three Logi or upper Triad,or three eternal planes. So this
Eternal aspect has two (or three) planes.
[...]
Below is one Quranic verse denoting the first aspect of this plane.
"Nothing is like Him" -(Ch-XLII-verse-9)
The second aspect of this Essence is viewing this essence as Absolute in its
Unity.
[...]The third plane is that of temporal or Manifestation,as Nature and
finite mind.
Below is some Quaranic verses denoting the second plane.
"And it is He who Hears and Sees"-(Ch-XLII-9)[...]
Lastly I will quote the commentary of some of these Quranic verses by the
Sufi Ibn-Arabi-Spain(1164-1240)from his great classic Fusus al hikam ,who is
known as the Greatest Master among Sufi circles and who lived more than 500
years before Hegel..
"Nothing is like Him ,and it is He who Hears and Sees"-(Ch-XLII-9)
Commentary-Do not then ,know Him only one side ,and remain ignorant of Him
on the other;do not affirm Him here ,while denying Him there,unless you do
affirm Him under the aspect in which He Himself affirms Himself ,and you do
deny Him equally under the aspect that He himself denies,according to the
Quranicverse which synthesizes the negation and affirmation towards God:
"Nothing is like Him ,and it is He who Hears and Sees". In the first part of
this verse ,God denies (every quality with respect to Him)and in the second
part He affirms (His Being)in respect of the quality which englobes all
living beings gifted with hearing or vision.

Reply: The words of Quran 42:9 in my edition are "[...] Nothing can be
compared with him. He alone sees and hears all." This sounds like the idea
of a transcendental God to whom Subjectivity is ascribed. It is interesting
that an explication of the Quran can be made to reveal something like the
Trinitarian structure Hegel finds in the Gospels, and to which Hegel is also
attracted on grounds of pure philosophical argumentation. The only quibble
I have with this (From a broadly Hegelian perspective) is that the form of
the argument is "positive" - that is, based on an acceptance of the idea of
Revelation. Hegel I believe, criticises this in his early essay 'On the
Positivityof the Christian Religion'. It denies the autonomy of the
individual reader in responding to the text, or at least, this is not plain
in every word he utters, as is the case in Plato's Dialogues for example.

[...]
L: " As to Hegel's criticism that Jewish and Islamic God only evokes fear I
think it is enough to say only that in all the 114 chapters of the Quran
each and every chapter begins with the words: "In the name of God,Most
Compassionate,Most Merciful".
As a matter of fact Hegel himself says Religious Truth is
Eternal,fixed,fundamental and unchangeable.But the problem is when ever
Hegel speaks of Religions he only mean Christianity and when ever he speaks
of God as Truth he only means the Christian God."

Reply: I agree that Hegel is drawing a rough contrast that doesn't really
stand up to a close reading of the Quran or the Old Testament. Equally
though, the image of a God evoking "only fear" is a passing remark in Hegel.
I think fear has a place in Hegel though - he quotes somewhere, for example,
the well known saying that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom"
(Proverbs), but goes on to say that it is only the beginning. You are
incorrect in saying that he only refers to Christianity when he speaks of
Religion. A great deal of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion are
concerned with non-Christian religions. It is also appropriate to remember
that Hegel was addressing a predominantly Chriatian audience, so it was
inevitable that he would address the problems of Christianity at length.

L: [quoting Hegel] "But as regards the comparison between the history of
Religion and that of Philosophy as to inner content, there is not in the
latter as there is in Religion a fixed and fundamental truth which, as
unchangeable, is apart from history. The content of Christianity, which is
Truth, has, however, remained unaltered as such, and has therefore little
history or as good as none. Hence in Religion, on account of its very nature
as Christianity, the conflict referred to disappears. The errors and
additions constitute no difficulty. They are transitory and altogether
historical in character"-(lectures on history of
philosophy-introduction-A-Notion of the history of philosophy). I conclude
this article from the same Grand Master Ibn Arabi.In contrast to the above
narrow and rigid reasoning and understanding see the knowledge of the Great
Master Ibn Arabi and what he says about God and Truth and the Virtue of
Tolerance. [...]"

Reply: On a skim through of the introduction, I haven't found this exact
quote, but I don't read Hegel's words here as "narrow and rigid" or indeed
"intolerant". He is trying to say that as a religious form, Christianity
has not developed greatly, as its essence was present (as told in the
Gospels, presumably) from the start. Nothing is implied about other
religions, which as he elsewhere says, are identical in content with
philosophy.

All the best
Stephen Cowley

MY REPLY

(post to hegel dialog-net on 8-mar-2004)

Dear Mr.Stephen Cowley,

>I am also not quite comfortable about your
> conflating Hegel's views of three such different (and in the case of the
> religions, internally diverse) trends of thought in this way.

They are different only for those who have not studied deeply these
religions.The triune form of the absolute is contained both in Jewish
mysticism and Hinduism both existed long before the time of Jesus.You may be
aware that in Hinduism even at 1000 BC the absolute mind aspect of these
triune form is represented very explicitly as the avatars (incarnation) of the absolute in different ages like Sir Rama,Sri Krishna etc.

>He is attributing substantiality as the dominant thought, at least
> in the case of Spinoza, but that is not say there may not be hints or
> suggestions of higher thoughts.

you are stretching it too far Mr.Stephen.the category of substance can not be stretched to include categories like life,self consciousness,will etc.if we do that it cannot be then called Hegelian essence or substance but it becomes the category notion.and that was exactly my point.the substance of Spinoza is not the same as the substance category of Hegel.

when Spinoza says the substance has infinite essential attributes out of which only two main attributes, thought(corresponds to Hegel's major category notion) and extension(corresponds to Hegel's major category being)is knowable to we human it is apparent that this substance is the absolute idea of Hegel with all its categories plus including an element of unknowability.

> Reply: I think Hegel's knowledge of Spinoza was good. You may know that
he
> helped bring out an edition of Spinoza in Jena between 1801-07, which
> demonstrates close knowledge of the text

you may be already read Hegel's criticism of Spinoza in science of logic(Actuality-remark-the philosophy of Spinoza&Leibniz-$1179-$1185) and chapter on Spinoza in history of philosophy.(part iii-modern philosophy-section-2).I request you to scan these parts again. I will just quote a small part from history of philosophy.May be Hegel want to show by that edition how narrow Spinoza's ideas are.

I will quotes some thing from Ethics to show what Spinoza's substance is.

By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite--that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality(Part-1-defi-vi)

God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.(part-1-propo-xi)

Hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God(part-1-prop-xv)

Further (to say a word here concerning the intellect and the will which we attribute to God), if intellect and will appertain to the eternal essence of God, we must take these words in some significations quite different from those they usually bear. For intellect and will, which should constitute the essence of God, would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human intellect and will, in fact, would have nothing in common with them but the name; there would be about as much correspondence between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks. This I will prove as follows: If intellect belongs to the divine nature, it cannot be in nature, as ours is generally thought to be, posterior to, or simultaneous with the things understood, inasmuch as God is prior to all things by reason of his causality . On the contrary, the truth and formal essence of things is as it is, because it exists by representation as such in the intellect of God; Wherefore the intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute God's essence, is, in reality, the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence. This seems to have been recognized by those who have asserted, that God's intellect, God's will, and God's power, are one and the same. As, therefore, God's intellect is the sole cause of things, namely, both of their essence and existence, it must necessarily differ from them in respect to its essence, and in respect to its existence-(part-1-prop vii)

The existence of God and his essence are one and the same.(part-1-prop xx)

Further, all the philosophers whom I have read admit that God's intellect is entirely actual, and not at all potential; as they also admit that God's intellect, and God's will, and God's essence are identical, it follows that, if God had a different actual intellect and a different will, his essence would also have been different; and thus, as I concluded at first, if things had been brought into being by God in a different way from that which has obtained, God's intellect and--will, that is (as is admitted) his essence would perforce have been different, which is absurd.-part1-xxxiii

God's power is identical with his essence.(part-1-xxxiv)

Thought is an attribute of God, or God is a thinking thing.(part-2-prop i)

Extension is an attribute of God, or God is an extended thing.(part-2-prop-ii)

>Equally
> though, the image of a God evoking "only fear" is a passing remark in
Hegel.
> I think fear has a place in Hegel though - he quotes somewhere, for
example,
> the well known saying that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
Wisdom"
> (Proverbs), but goes on to say that it is only the beginning.

I think you missed my quotes from Hegel.it is in my quote itself Hegel quotes this proverb ,but only to criticize and to point out what he think the defect of Judaism and Islam and to say indirectly the love of the lord is only the character of Christianity and so it is the only defectless religion. (I hope you don't have to be a Derrida or other postmodernists of deconstruction to know the intentionality and the unwritten words of the author.)

"If we consider God as the Essence only, and nothing more, we know Him only as the universal and irresistible Power; in other words, as the Lord. Now the fear of the Lord is, doubtless, the beginning, bait only the beginning, of wisdom. To look at God in this light, as the Lord, and the Lord alone, is especially characteristic of Judaism and also of Mohammedanism. The defect of these religions lies in their scant recognition of the finite, which, be it as natural things or as finite phases of mind, it is characteristic of the heathen and (as they also for that reason are) polytheistic religions to maintain intact". (Encyclopedia-Logic-$112)

>You are
> incorrect in saying that he only refers to Christianity when he speaks of
> Religion

>but I don't read Hegel's words here as "narrow and rigid" or indeed
> "intolerant". He is trying to say that as a religious form, Christianity
> has not developed greatly,

I fear you have not understood Hegel here.what Hegel says is religious truth is fixed ,unchangeable and fundamental truth but philosophic truth develops through history.and what I criticized is but this eternal and fundamental truth he identifies only with Christianity(errors and addition in Christianity is only man made so historical).So he is not saying,as you think Christianity has not developed greatly.

"But as regards the comparison between the history of Religion and that of Philosophy as to inner content, there is not in the latter as there is in Religion a fixed and fundamental truth which, as unchangeable, is apart from history. The content of Christianity, which is Truth, has, however, remained unaltered as such, and has therefore little history or as good as none. Hence in Religion, on account of its very nature as Christianity, the conflict referred to disappears. The errors and additions constitute no difficulty. They are transitory and altogether historical in character"-(lectures on history of philosophy-introduction-A-Notion of the history of philosophy)

All these things ,saying other religions like Judaism and Islam are defective and only Christianity contain eternal and unchancheable truth may appear to those who believe "Jesus is the only savior and all others are doomed"like the words of St Paul the apostle and preacher or the words of our current self proclaimed Hegelian scholars and apostles.it may even feel sweet like honey to their tongue and music to their ears. but to others whether atheists,agnostics,or even a mature theist or rational religious mind it looks like "narrow and rigid "reasoning.

regards

lathief